CLEMMONS--Betty Brown listens to the book on tape she checked out from the local library. A good book makes her work faster. This morning it's Matthew coming through her headphones, from THE good book -- The Bible.

"... and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me the word, that I too may come and worship him."

Brown flattens the dough before her with measured strokes of her rolling pin. Thinner. Flatter. Roll. Sprinkle some flour. Thinner. Flatter. Roll.

"When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy."

The dough is just right now; so papery thin you can just begin to see through it. It has to be thin, but not too thin. That's the secret, or at least one of them.

Picking up a cookie cutter, Brown starts slowly. Thump ... thump ... thump. Soon her hands are flying across the sheet of dough in a blur. Thump, thump, thump. Thump, thump, thump. The delicate circles of dough seem to float from one hand to the other and then to the pan. She could deal cards in Vegas.

It's all about hands at Mrs. Hanes' Moravian Cookies in Clemmons. Rolling, cutting, stacking and packing. Every sweet, melt-in-your mouth wafer is made by hand.

And yes, there is a real Mrs. Hanes. Evva Hanes started making the cookies when she was 5, helping her mother bake them on their wood-burning stove around Christmas time to add a little money to what the family made on their farm. That extra money has grown into a thriving business that ships the traditional cookies to more than 70,000 customers around the world.

In the back room, nine women sit in padded office chairs, wrapping the fragile cookies and carefully packing them into two-pound tins. They stroke the stacks like a gambler fingering his poker chips, knowing by touch if the stack is too tall or too short. Knowing just when to add or take away.

Back in the baking area, a fine haze of flour hangs in the room, mixing with the rich aroma of the flavor of the day, black walnut. It smells good. Really good. So good you just want to bite the air for a taste.

Betty Brown and about 25 other bakers keep rolling and cutting on the angled white boards, until there's not enough dough for even one cookie. It's time to move on to the next flavor. Maybe sugar crisps, or chocolate, lemon, ginger or even butterscotch.

Customers crowd around a window, faces pressed against the glass as Brown works the dough into another paper-thin sheet.

Quickly now, but not too quick. That makes for ugly cookies and Betty Brown does not like ugly cookies.

She sprinkles a little more flour and begins to cut.

The crowd oohs and aahs. The older ones remember cookies past and the younger dream of cookies future ... and Betty Brown listens to Matthew.

"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."